Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-06-06

ChCAAN AiuAG lGdN bAlC hoA AAANAh febSA7-
Winch one of the northern states had at
that time called an army of 10000 men
to the field? Columbia, the capital of the
state, chose the smallpox in preference
to the confederate convention, and
Charleston received the latter Dec. "a by
vote of l24 to 80. South Carolina seeded
from the Union.
The state forces seized at once the L.
s Custom House pOst-office arsenal, and
Forts Pinckney and Moultrie. Maj. And
erSon had withdrawn from the latter to
Fit. Sumpter. Jan. 9th; Mississippi
Florida and Alabama followed South Car
olina. Listen to the almost prophetic
words of Alexander H. Stevens, one of
Americas greatest statesmen, as he plead
ed with Georgia to halt, and abide by the
Union: Said he, ''This step, secession,
once taken can never be recalled, and all
the baleful and whitening consequences
that must follow Gas you will see) win
rest on this convention for all coming
i time. When we and our posterity shall
| see our lovely South desolate by the de-
mon of war, which this act of yours will
| inevitably provoke, when our grain fields
and waving harvests shall he trodden
down by a murderous soldiery and the
car of war sweeps over the land, our tenn
plies of justice laid in ashes, and every
| horror and desOlatiOn is upon us. who
but this convention will be held RESPONSE
BILE for and who but him who shall have
| given his vote for this unwise and ill
| timed measure, shall be held to a strict
account for this suicidal act by the pres
ent generation, and be cursed and eXecrat-
ed by posterity in all coming time for the
wide and desolating ruin that will newt
ably fellow this act you now propose to
| perpetrate. Pause, l entreat you, and
consider for a moment what reasons you
| can give that will satisfy yourselves in
calmer moments what reasons you can
give to your fellOw-sufferers in the calam-
ity that it will bring upon us. What rea-
| son can you give to the nations of the
earth to justify it? They will be calm
! and deliberate Judges of this case, and to
what cause or one overt act can you point
out on which to rest the plea of justifica-
ton? What right has the North assailed?
What interest of the South has been in
vaded? What justice has been denied, and
what claim founded in justice and right,
has been unsatisfied? Can any of you
name to-day one governmental act of
wrong, deliberately and purposely done
by the government at Washington, of
which the South has right to complain?
1 challenge an answer -
No answer ever came but the roar of
cannon at Sumpter and the tread of armed
men to battle. The same orator at Sa-
vannah March 2I, 1861, said, 1.-The new
constitution has put at rest forever all
agitating questions relating to our pecu-
| liar institutions. African slavery as it
exists among us-the proper status of the
negro is our own form of civilization.
This was the immediate cause of the late
| rupture and present revolution. Jeffer
! son in his forecast had anticipated this as
the rock on which the old Union would
| split (We stop to observe that the rock
and not the Union was split. The pre-
vailing ideas entertained by Jefferson and
most of the leading statesmen at the time
of the formation of the old constitution
were that the enslavement of the African
was in violation of the laws of nature,
that it was wrong in principal, socially
morally and politically. Our new govern
ment is founded upon exactly the OppO-
site ideas; its foundations are laid, its
stone rests upon the great truth that the
negro is not equal to the white man, that
slavery subordination to the superior race
is his natural and normal condition. This,
our new government, is the first in the
history of the world based upon this great
physical philosophical and moral truth
The negro by nature or by the curse
against Canaan is fitted for that condition
which he occupies in our system"
Comrades, friends, it was not then, be-
cause of injustice at the hands of the
North, or complaint against the govern
ment but for their own selfish aggrandize-
ment, and to propagate the foul principal
of one mans subjugation to another that
your comrades were shot down or starv-
ed to death.
The constitution begins: 1--WE hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are en-
dOwed by their Creator with certain in
alienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty and the pursuits of happiness" +"
Our heroes, then, fought for this consti-
tuition, for life and liberty and the happi-
ness which we enjoy is the fruit of their
sacrifice 1t is well then that we honor
them. But more, they fought as no 9th
ers have battled
A comparison of the losses i'm some of
the sanguinary battles of the Old World
will demonstrate the bravery and herOism
of our own soldiery. At Waterloo the
loss was only u per cent of those engag-
ed. but at Shiloh the loss was more than
80 per cent; at Magenta s per cent Aus
terlitZ, 13 per cent; while at Perryville,
Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, Mission Ridge
and the Wilderness the loss often exceed
ed 40 per cent of those engaged.
No such soIdiery ever marched to bat
tie, and hence no such heroes ever return
ed with victorious laurels TO lay at the
feet of their government. There has
been no such campaign as that of the
grand old army of the Potomac; for four
long years fought against the flower Of
the Old Dominion, the palmetto and cot
ton-crowned states of the South. There
has been no such march the wild,
onward stride of Sherman TO the Sea, and
along its shores to the then pine barrens
of old North Carolina. There has been
no such rotten. pestilential, God-forsaken
and sin-cursed prisOn-pens a. those at
Andersonville, Florence, Libby and else
where in the South and no such suffering
patience and loyalty was exhibited by
our sons and our fathers there.
Flowers VIII these garlands these tears
these honors of peace, rather than war.
satisfy the dead, compensate the living,
ennoble our posterity or make sacred our
obligations Never. These are but the
I tokens of our love. esteem and honor for